Changing careers is very difficult. Add in a full-time job and a
couple of kids, and the task seems nearly impossible. But even if
you're busy, you can make the time to build the skills to level up
your career. Here's how Michael Tombor did just that.

“Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “It’s not a
priority,” and see how that feels.” — Laura Vanderkam

Changing careers is very difficult. Add in a full-time job and a
couple of kids and the task seems nearly impossible. Yet, even if
you are busy, you can prioritize and make the time to focus on what
matters to you and build the skills to level up your career.

Engineer your future with code

I started my coding journey just six months ago. Now I am one
project away from completing my front-end developer certificate on
freeCodeCamp. I’ve also completed the web developer boot camp
course by Colt Steele on Udemy. And I did this all while raising
two kids and working in a full-time job.

When I began using these tips, I saw my progress increase
tenfold. I know I would have accomplished much more if I had
implemented them earlier in my journey. I have not only benefited
from increased productivity, but I feel more balanced and am having
more fun than ever before.

My pivot into web development

After being in health care for the last five years, I realized
that it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Don’t
get me wrong - I loved helping people on their path to health, but
I hated seeing the system break down for them. I hated when people
could not afford their medication, or when their care plan wasn’t
in sync with the treatment they needed.

I wanted to do more to help these people. But I knew that I
couldn’t do more unless I took a step back and looked at the bigger
picture.

I was not always interested in coding, but the more I looked at
the forces making real change in today’s world, the more I saw that
tech was behind these advances.

I saw an opportunity to make meaningful change, and that is when
I became interested in coding.

Why are you coding?

Whatever the reason is, really think about it and pin it down.
Use it as motivation to propel you towards your coding goals.
Having this end goal will help you bust through plateaus and push
through the hard parts (coding is hard).

Every day that I spend at my current day job motivates me to get
home, boot up my laptop, and continue my journey of learning how to
code.

The good news is that building coding skills is simple. All you
have to do is code a lot. But unfortunately, this is where the hard
part comes in. Fitting time into your busy life to routinely code
is difficult, to say the least.

How to climb the coding mountain

There is a gap between where you are now and where you want to
be. That is why you are reading this article. That is why you work
day in and out, and end up sacrificing time with your family and
loved ones.

If we are spending all this time working towards our goal, it is
paramount to make the most of the time we spend learning how to
code.

Here are five steps to turn this dream into a reality:

Create your personalized goals

To make the most of your time, nothing is more important than
making actionable short-term goals. This will not only help you
feel a sense of accomplishment every time you meet a goal, but it
will help make the coding journey feel a lot less daunting.

Goals Exercise!

To help you come up with focused goals, I want to encourage you
to do a quick exercise that I picked up from Laura Vanderkam.

1. Picture yourself one year from now. You have crushed ALL your
coding goals and landed your dream job. You have given five talks
at conferences around the world, and you built up your App and it
was successful. Whatever success looks like to you, picture your
future self. Please be ambitious, maybe even dream a little.

2. What 3 - 5 goals did you accomplish in that year that made it
so successful?

3. Write these goals down.

4. Repeat this exercise for your personal life goals. It is
impossible to work all the time, and to be successful you need work
life balance (or you will burn out).

Now you have 6 - 10 ambitious goals that you want to accomplish
during the next year. To break these larger goals down into action
items, think about and plan about how you can meet these goals.

For example, if you want to complete the freeCodeCamp front end
certificate, you need to schedule time to work on it throughout the
week. If you want to run a marathon, you need to buy running shoes,
sign up for a marathon, and schedule time to train regularly.

2. Make a Schedule

I’ll be honest - I am definitely not the scheduling type. I
thought that I could wing it day by day. But realistically, you
need to set time aside to focus, or your goals will pour over into
the rest of your life. I found myself feeling anxious about coding
during time with my family or when I was putting my kids to bed,
because I hadn’t coded yet that day.

The thing I looked forward to all day (coding) started to
negatively impact my quality of life.

Splitting your time into focused blocks allows you to be 100% in
the present moment. When it is coding time, you can have tunnel
vision and hack away. When it is time to unwind, or hang out with
people you care about, you can be present because you coded that
morning, or have time scheduled later in the day.

I schedule a lot of family time. Family is really important to
me. Your schedule will look a lot different, but the point is to
create a schedule that will allow you to meet your goals without
you hating life along the way. Just try to account for everything,
so you can stick to your schedule.

3. Audit yourself to find time opportunities

Write down all the activities in a given day or week and see
what you really do with your time. You will likely be surprised by
exactly how much time you spend mindlessly scrolling through your
Instagram feed, or binge watching a new Netflix show (I love
Stranger Things).

I’m not telling you to cut all of it out but keep a balance. You
can definitely turn some of that idle time into some serious coding
gains.

There is more time than you think

If you are still thinking to yourself, “yeah, but I still work a
lot and (insert excuse here) so I can’t find time”, then here is a
fun fact! There are 168 hours in a week. If you work a full 40 hour
week and subtract 8 hours of sleep per night (which I definitely
don’t get) you still end up with 72 hours of “free” time.

Look at all the time you have in your life situation and squeeze
as much “good” stuff into that time as you can. There IS time.

4. Fill your time with quality

Here are some tools that I use to help me accomplish my coding
goals and stay focused on my learning path:

freeCodeCamp

Seriously one of the best tools for meeting goals. The
curriculum is right there for you to follow and work on, it even
tracks your progress!

JavaScript 30

30 JavaScript projects really help you master array methods
while filling up your portfolio with projects (plus it is tons of
fun). Wes Bos is a solid instructor who provides a quality free
course. You can complete it in 30 consecutive days, or work it into
your learning schedule.

100 Days of code on Twitter

This 100 day challenge consists of coding every day and tweeting
about what you did. It is a great tool for tracking progress and
measuring how far you have come. This community is full of
inspiring people from all over the world and is a great way to meet
like minded developers.

The Web Developer Boot Camp

I am almost finished with this course, and it has patched a lot
of holes in my coding knowledge. Colt doesn’t just show you how to
do something, he also explains why you do it a certain way. Plus,
there is now an advanced web developer boot camp that I am going to
take once I’m done.

Live It!

This isn’t a resource, but you should embrace the tech community
by living it. Listen to podcasts while you drive to work or do the
dishes. Follow leaders in the industry on Twitter. Read articles.
Immerse yourself in tech and you will learn without realizing you
are learning.

5. Multiply your time

We have set goals, and now have several larger goals broken down
into actionable goals. We have gone through how to fit these goals
into your busy life and I have helped give you some ideas on how to
fill your time. Now, I want to tell you how you can make the most
out of the time you put into coding.

The Answer: Be Happy!

What does being happy have to do with managing time, you ask?
Simply put: it is everything. The idea is called multiplying your
time.

Being present and deeply focused leads to increased
productivity. This in turn multiplies the time you spend by
increasing efficiency. Plus, who doesn’t want to be happy?

According to Shawn Achor, who studied the effects of happiness
and its link to productivity, your brain performs 31% more
productively when you feel happy.

Dopamine, which floods into your system when you feel positive,
does two things:

It makes you happier (duh!)

It turns on the learning centers in your brain. They help you
learn things more easily, and allow you to spend less time on
learning while retaining more information.

Turn your brain into a dopamine producing machine!

You can release more dopamine by creating lasting, positive
change. There are five things you can work into your routine to
turn your brain into a dopamine producing machine:

1. Write three new things that you’re grateful for each day.
This creates the habit of scanning the world for positive things,
instead of negative ones.

2. Journal about a positive experience you had in the last 24
hours. This allows you to relive the positive experience which
leads to the same dopamine response.

3. Exercise. Go on a short walk before a coding session, or bust
out a quick workout. Exercise releases tons of dopamine.

4. Meditate. Meditation trains your brain to focus more on the
task at hand, all while releasing dopamine.

5. Random acts of kindness. Thank someone in your social support
network for helping you, or help someone out. This not only
releases dopamine for you, it also does the same for the person you
helped (and they may pay it forward).

Use blocks of time to build your future

Even if we are busy, we must take out time for the things that
matter the most. When you focus on what matters, you can build the
life you want with the blocks of time you have.

About the Podcast

The official podcast of the freeCodeCamp open source community.
Learn to code with free online courses, programming projects, and interview preparation for developer jobs.